Update

Another crazy month has went by, and in addition to it being freezing cold outside, I had another Germany trip, so production is not what I would like, but I have been doing a little work. Below is a shot of the RH Torque box and the RH Front Frame rail before I pulled them out. We knew about all of the rust in the rail, but as I started cutting, I found more. The RH rocker rail is chewed up on the end, but I think I can fix it and paint with the special anti-rust paint I have.


The frame rail and torque box are out except the back plate of the torque box. It has about 20 spot welds to the firewall that I am cutting from the floorboard. I am going really slow with this so I don't dent the floorboard.



One other thing I got done, was to pull the gas tank. It is in really good shape. Just a little clean up and new gaskets will get the job done here. The rear trunk area in in good shape except for the outside wheel wells, which I knew were in bad shape from the beginning. I am not going to go in here until I get the front completely fixed. I had to pull the gas tank to keep from blowing up the joint when I was welding. I'm glad I didn't go far when I cranked it up when I got it here, because I got about half a gallon out of the tank !!

I had the transmission hot tanked and it got all of the grease and grime off, but there is still aluminum oxidation on the outside of the housing. I have tried to wire brush it off, but it is not real successful compared to the amount of work. After talking to some people around on coatings and such, I am going to mask off all of the machined sections and lightly blast it.


I got to a point where I really needed a blast cabinet. I had been waiting until they were on sale at Harbor Frieght, and finally hit it and had a 20% off coupon. This one works pretty well. With the Shop-Vac hooked up, a light inside, and the air compressor running wide open, it works pretty good.

This cabinet has pretty good room in it. I have the fan blade in there laying down right now.

I was able to get the fan pulley and most of the fan blasted today. It was just warm enough to paint the fan pulley, so it is done. The fan will be ready for paint soon as well. I have to be patient when blasting because it doesn't take long to run down the pressure on my compressor.

Progress!!

I hadn't posted in a long time, but work has been going on slowly.

After I brought the engine home, I started to cut and grind out the right front frame rail of the body. It took a bunch of spot weld cutting, but I got it loose.

Since my plan is to keep a mechanical and body project going on at the same time, I also started to tear down the transmission. Here is a pic from the start.

The first step was to knock the gunk off. I then used a wire brush to try and clean some of the suface oxides. This worked ok, but I will need more work later.


I didn't take any pictures with is all apart, but it is done. None of the parts are damaged, just some wear on it. It was rebuild years ago, and looked in real good shape. The fluid was clean and no chips or anything in the pan. The rebuild kit I got for it should be ok. I took the parts to be hot tanked before I start re-assembly.



I will put up some pics of all of the parts before I start re-assembly. Hopefully the build is as easy as the tear down, the Ford service manual was really helpful.

Motor Is Home

Brought home the motor this weekend. I've started putting parts on it to seal up all of the holes. So far, I have the fuel pump, distributor, spark plugs, and temp sender in. I'm going to do more tonight.

I finished the distributor all but a small e-clip that I broke. The pertronix system I put in was real easy.

Distributor Rebuild

Since the engine is ready, I have started to put in the solid state ignition system. Before that however, I am pulling the shaft out to check the bearings and give everything a good cleaning. An old oil leak really has this thing gunked up. The input gear looks good.

Engine is Back Together !

Here is a picture of the current state of the motor. All assembled and Ford Blue. It is a huge difference from how it started. All new parts and ready to go. I stayed with the 2 barrel intake and carb, so I need to go thru a rebuild kit for the carb. We put plenty of engine assembly lube on everything because it will sit for a while.


Fresh tins. We blasted the covers and there was still some pits in the valve covers. The oil pan is perfect, to bad it is under the car !! I chemical stripped everything and painted with Ford Blue hi temp engine paint.
Brass freeze plugs and the heads are ready to go on.
All new pistons and rings.

Sheet Metal Starts

Pulled the RH Front apron off today. I wanted to start on a bad panel to get used to the spot weld cutter and chisel. Worked pretty good. Next is to keep cutting the RH loose until I get the frame rail out. I attached some pictures of the front frame of the car. It has a bad spot at the bottom. I am going to blast it and hopefully have metal.

I also finally got a good look at the cowl vents. They are rusted, so I have to pull the front cap off that section. I am not looking forward to that since ther are about 50 spot welds to get the cap off. The work is going to get worse before it gets better!!

Progress Update

So I haven't posted in a while and decided to give a little update. I now have the car sheet metal only from the front bumper to the back seat. Everything is out of the dash and engine bay. Here are a couple of pictures, but they don't show much. Since the pics, all of the dash parts are out. The windshield is also gone, we pulled it last night and luckily it is still in one piece. I am ready to start stripping and blasting paint on the front to find all of the rust. The main work is foing to be replacing the RH front frame rail and the LH kick panel. I need to do some more research on if the LH cowl vent leaks, but it looks like the water came from the washer fluid pump that is over there. I need to pour water in the cowls to make sure though.

The engine is ready to go back together. We bored the block .030" and it looks good. The heads have been surface ground and the seats cleaned up. Looks like we had three burnt exhaust valves, worn valve springs, and worn rocker arms. All of these are going back new. It also looks like the engine was rebuilt sometime early, maybe in its warranty life. There are 2 number 1 connecting rods. All of the parts are FOMOCO, so we think maybe the rebuild was done at the dealer. With the new bore and heavier cam, the engine will probably go from the old 195 hp, (130-150 in its current state) to somewhere around 210-220hp. I am thinking about going to a 4 barrel carb and intake manifold. That would make this thing scream, but I don't think it is in the budget right now, maybe later.

I am starting to order parts so that I can have the engine completely ready to drop in the hole when its ready. I am going with all new "reliability" parts. New starter, starter solenoid, voltage regulator, alternator, pertronix solid state ignition, water pump, plug wires and distributor, radiator hoses, and a carb rebuild kit. That is a lot of cash in a small area, but I think it is worth it to make sure when we want to go for a ride, all that is involved is finding the keys.